Police: Two Florida men kidnap, Taser, try to extort West Palm woman

Thursday

Aug 30, 2018 at 12:01 AMAug 30, 2018 at 9:16 PM

Two men were arrested Monday after police said they kidnapped a West Palm Beach woman and tried to extort $2.5 million from her Palm Beach bank account.

The two men, Mustafa Gencoglanoglu, 45, of West Palm Beach and Murat Ekdi, 38, of Tampa, were arrested on several felony charges, including robbery, kidnapping, aggravated battery, aggravated assault and extortion.

The victim, a 59-year-old woman who told police she has known Gencoglanoglu for about a year, said Gencoglanoglu asked her to drive him to the Mangonia Park Train Station in West Palm Beach on Monday, according to a sworn affidavit. When they arrived at the station, Gencoglanoglu shocked the woman with a Taser several times on the arm, neck and head, according to the affidavit, stopping her from leaving the car. Gencoglanoglu then covered the woman’s face and drove to an empty house in West Palm Beach that he had rented using Airbnb, police said. (A spokesman for Airbnb said the house was not rented through the website.)

More Palm Beach Public Safety news

Gencoglanoglu brought the woman into the house where Ekdi — wearing a black mask and black gloves — was waiting, police said. The woman told police the two men beat and shocked her with a Taser inside the house, according to the affidavit.

The two men then ordered the woman to hold a handgun that they told her had been used to kill two people earlier that week, according to the affidavit, and now the woman’s fingerprints were on it. If she didn’t do what they said, they said they would go to the police and frame her for the murders, according to the affidavit.

Gencoglanoglu and Ekdi then drove the woman to Sabadell United Bank in Palm Beach, where Gencoglanoglu walked inside with her, police said. Gencoglanoglu told the woman to show the teller his cellphone, which listed an account number and routing number for an offshore account, and to transfer $2.5 million into that account, according to the affidavit. While the woman spoke to the teller, Gencoglanoglu sat in the waiting area, police said.

At the teller’s window, the woman told a bank employee that she was being kidnapped and the two men "were going to kill her and her family," police said, and asked the employee to hide her. The employee took the woman to a locked conference room, according to the affidavit, and Gencoglanoglu "exited the bank in panic, knowing the police would shortly come."

Police arrived at the bank and saw the two men’s white Ford Explorer speed away on South County Road, according to the affidavit. Police followed the car, which pulled over to the side of the road and stopped, where the two men surrendered, police said.

Gencoglanoglu later told police that the gun they ordered the woman to hold to frame her for murder was just a "scare tactic," according to the affidavit. Gencoglanoglu also said he and Ekdi had discussed the kidnapping plan for about two to three weeks and planned to split the $2.5 million, police said.

Ekdi told police that Gencoglanoglu had contacted him three days earlier about a "business proposition" with Gencoglanoglu’s girlfriend and to bring his gun, according to the affidavit. Ekdi said he did not know why Gencoglanoglu told him to wear a mask and gloves but "decided to go along with" it, police said. Ekdi also said that Gencoglanoglu told him not to speak in his native language of Turkish, police said, but to try and sound Russian.

When police asked Ekdi why he used a Taser to scare the woman, Ekdi said "it was a joke," according to the affidavit.

Ekdi was arrested on felony counts of attempted robbery with a firearm, kidnapping, aggravated battery, extortion and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Gencoglanoglu was arrested on felony charges of kidnapping, attempted robbery with a firearm, aggravated battery, extortion, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill and unlawful use of a two-way communication device.